Reaping and sowing

That was the title I originally intended for last night's blog. I had thought I might write more about the philosophical underpinnings of choosing a harder, less convenient, more unconventional means of cutting the grass and living in general, but I didn't. But if I *had*, that might have been a good title for it.

THE "MISS LYNN" LOGO IS DONE! HEATHER K. IS MY HERO(INE)!!! I am so happy with it.


And now it is late and I must abed. Fare well, gentle readers. And if you missed Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's today, I understand that Baskin-Robbins has cones for 39 cents (? or 31 cents? that would be more logical) tomorrow. Cheap ice cream isn't as good as free ice cream, but it's still pretty darned good.

I thought of a good title while I was mowing, but then I forgot it

I went to Lowe's this morning and bought a non-motorized push (or "reel") mower. It's possible you've never seen one--I certainly had never used one before. (Of course, I only ever used a conventional gas-powered mower once--thanks, KG!) The rising price of gas has in turn affected the price of having someone else cut your grass. Well, my grass. The stuff I read online about the efficacy of electric mowers was not terribly encouraging. But I could buy a brand-new reel mower for less than it would cost to have somebody else cut the grass three times, so I figured that even if it were really difficult to use, I'd only have to use it three times and I'd still be ahead.

Plus, I like the idea of not contributing air or noise pollution, and it's good exercise (as I'm confident my arms and legs will remind me tomorrow). I have a very hard time getting motivated to be physically active for its own sake (like running in circles, for instance), but this is something I may be able to get behind. It's good for the environment, it makes my life (somewhat) simpler, and it's cheap! Sounds like me.

Here it is!

It wasn't as hard to use as I was afraid it would be, although I did discover that it is significantly harder to use on really overgrown grass--impetus to keep it trimmed. Also, it was not terribly successful on certain tall-growing weeds among the grass. It's kind of hard to tell in these photos, but there are a lot of little green stick-y type things still poking up.



The other thing I bought (at Lowe's, natch!) was a fancy pair of extendable pruning shears. The stuff in the drainage ditch out front had grown fairly unsightly, so I figured I should do some chop-chopping. Before:


And after:

Frankly, I'm not sure it's an improvement. I actually kind of liked all the vegetation, but it was getting pretty high and I was kind of concerned one of my neighbors might complain.

I did a little more than three hours of yard work in all today, and as you might imagine, I'm pretty worn out. That included the ditch and about 2/3 of the yard.

Long day ahead tomorrow--starting in the studio with Dave at 8:30 so we can get some time in before I have to head to Franklin for my babysitting job at noon, then right back to Nashville for FREE CONE DAY! Whoo-hoo!

Scheaffer makes a fine product

I have at times been chastised for the fact that I never throw anything away. Well, that's not completely accurate, but I have been known to save lots of stuff, and that has not always been understood by others. But my trouble is that, not knowing exactly what the future holds, I can often foresee potential uses for things, where other people might see something taking up space. I once read an article that said "savers" (a.k.a "pack rats") are often highly intelligent and creative, for exactly the reason of seeing potential usefulness in objects. I must admit I took a lot of solace in that.

After my activities of this evening, I feel a little vindicated in my pack-ratterry. I had an idea quite a while ago for a "Miss Lynn" music logo, and determined with Heather K. last week that it was not something that we were going to be able to create in Photoshop, but rather was going to need to be hand-drawn.

Flashback to 1984 (I think?), when I received a calligraphy set as a gift. As I recall, someone had given my dad some felt-tipped calligraphy pens, and I had used them quite a bit. The set contained a fountain pen with three different sized nibs, 14 (different colored!) ink cartridges, an instructional booklet and practice pad. It got a fair amount of use in my early adolescence.

And yes, I still have it.


I broke it out tonight to work on the logo, and it still works! Not only that, but *some* of the cartridges still had liquid ink in them! (Not the box of black ones my grandfather gave me, which must have been at least 50 years old by now. I discarded them. See, I do throw some things away!)

I did two attempts at the logo. I'm not completely satisfied, but at least they get the idea across. My hope is that Heather can scan them for me and then maybe we can clean them up on the computer, cutting-and-pasting from the two versions as necessary.



What do you think? Do you get the idea? Do they remotely look like me? Do they make me look 400 years old?

It is way past the point when I should have gone to bed, so that's it for now. Happy Tuesday and thanks for reading!

Santa's workshop runs all year

Several people (mostly ones I don't see very often) have been asking me what I have been knitting lately. Well, frankly, nothing. I lost steam after turning out those baby sweaters one after the other a few weeks ago, and then we started working on recording and I just haven't been very motivated. Although I do have a couple of Ukraine-related hats to be working on . . . but more on that another time.

Today my friend Annie sent me a link to pictures of her little one wearing a hat I made for him last year. And so, for the knitting-content curious, I present . . . SIMON THE ELF!


Apparently making toys all day is very tiring. Yes, his daddy is a professional photographer.

I guess that's it for this uneventful day. Time for some shut-eye.

If the faces are rockin', just come a-knockin'

Woo Miss Lynn library show woo!

Jenny got some pre-show pictures of me and Michael, which I will try and post when I get them from her. I only caught one on my camera, but it is pretty sweet:


Wrists shown are all from grown-up friends who came out to the program. Thanks, friends! There were about 30 in attendance in all. Apparently I will have to make more of the rooster tattoos for next time, 'cause they were very popular.

I was out late babysitting last night and have another job tonight, so I'm trying to lie low this afternoon and rest up. Still am experiencing some congestion yuckiness, but for the most part I feel fine (God bless pseudoephedrine). I'm trying to squeeze in as many babysitting jobs as I can around recording for the next few weeks before I leave for Oregon, so I atypically took a job for tomorrow (Sunday) afternoon as well. At some point I will need to catch up on dishes and laundry, but that will not be today.

Right now I am very worn out from the week and this morning's program, but in a completely satisfactory way. Hooray for fatigue born of doing something you love.

Thanks for reading, and happy Saturday!

Confusion and delight

If you read this blog regularly, you may have noticed that I didn't post anything for the last couple of days. The reason for this is that the pervasive "junk" I have referred to on a number of previous occasions finally caught up with me. I have been a little sick--though fortunately not incapacitated--since Tuesday afternoon or so. As a result, I bowed out of my normal evening activities for Tuesday and Wednesday (namely, knitting group and neighborhood fellowship) in an attempt to get extra rest and not have to cancel any babysitting jobs or recording sessions.

The plan seems to have worked, as I was able to get through the long day today and am still feeling pretty good at this point--though I'm going to need to take more decongestant shortly. But it was hard to bail on my NFG peeps--I felt really sad while I was lying in bed yestereve, knowing they were all partying without me.

I got home from my day of babysitting and helping with the Kidtown consignment sale about half an hour ago, and was surprised and befuddled to see something sitting on top of the recycling bin out back of my house when I pulled up:


Closer inspection revealed a bottle of Gatorade and two individually-wrapped cinnamon rolls:



Huh?

Well, what I didn't see upon first glance was that there was also a handmade "Get Well" card which had blown onto the pavement behind the bin. It was all a lovely gift from my lovely friends to let me know I was loved and missed.

I doubt I would feel so rich if I had won the Mega-Millions Jackpot.

The aforementioned consignment sale is a fundraiser for the children's ministry at church, and has a bunch of kids' clothes, toys, some furniture, and other assorted kids-related items. It is being held at the home of my friends Hal and Tiffany.

As we were packing up for the evening, their three-year old, Sawyer, latched onto a cash register in among the toys. It has a handset for a loudspeaker attached to it, which Sawyer was using as a phone. I explained that it was there for the cashier to use to call the manager for help, and I demonstrated, "I need change on aisle 3." He found this quite humorous.

Anyway, Sawyer continued to be fascinated with the cash register for the next 20 minutes or so, as we packed things away in the garage for tomorrow. Just before I was getting ready to leave, I heard him say (into the handset, of course), "I need to get the manager. Miss Lynn needs help."

True dat--double true. So thanks to all my many helpers out there--my family, friends, bringers of Gatorade and callers of Managers . . . many much heartfelt thanks to you.

Sold My Soul to MySpace

Several people have asked me about hearing samples of what we have been working on in the studio over the past few weeks, so today Dave burned a CD with rough cuts of the two songs currently in progress. And I came home all excited to share them with my faithful blog-reading audience . . . but unfortunately, the process is more complicated than I realized. For some reason, I thought I could just upload the files right onto the blog and people could listen to them, but sadly that is not the case.

After several unsuccessful attempts at other solutions, I finally broke down and set up the Miss Lynn music MySpace page. I knew it was an inevitability, but I hoped to put it off until stuff was more ready--like the album, for instance.

And I don't want to look a gift horse in the free-webpage-provision, but MySpace is kind of a mess. Things often don't work the way they are supposed to. I tried three times to post something on there cautioning listeners about the fact that the clips are rough works-in-progress--but when the MySpace blog application repeatedly malfunctioned, I gave up. Hopefully people will be able to discern that from the word "Rough" included in both song titles.

Having said all that, I suppose it's an adequate solution for now, and it is nice to give folks an opportunity to hear where we are. So if you're interested, mosey on over and take a listen!

Miss Lynn on MySpace

EDIT: I almost forgot to mention this, since it happened when I was on my way over to the Spencers' this morning--but I heard my brother's name on the radio. WEIRD. Only it was not attached to him! EVEN WEIRDER. Yes, there is a guy in Nashville with the same name as my brother (uncommon last name, common first), and he apparently won something on the radio this morning. So, congratulations, David Hickernell! Only not the one I actually know. I sort of expected someone I know to have heard it and called me about it, but that didn't happen. Either people don't listen to Lightning 100, or they don't pay attention, or they don't like me. One of those options.

Happy Monday!

A: Hell's Angels and Preschoolers

And the Q is, of course: Who loves tattoos? In the latter case, they are generally the temporary kind. Which, truth be told, are also much beloved by yours truly. WHICH is the reason why Jenny G. and I hatched up the plan to have promotional temporary tattoos for Miss Lynn music!

We came up with this idea a few weeks back, and so I ordered a small quantity of temporary-tattoo paper online to try it out. This afternoon, I spent a couple of hours designing the tats, and then headed over to Jenny and Michael's to print them out on their really nice inkjet printer.

I don't want to blow your minds with all the temporary awesomeness all at once, but I have to share a picture of one creation adorning my bulging bicep:


I chose this particular one as a sample because DS and I are in the middle of working on that song right now, and I figured it would be pretty awesome to come into the studio sporting it tomorrow morning.

The other designs will be available for souvenirs to the audience at our library program this coming Saturday . . . hopefully there will be some photos to come after the fact.

After our tattoo-fest, I worshiped with the folks over at Mercyhill and then headed over to Trish's to watch the end of "Monk" and "Psych"! Good times, all.

Thanks for reading and happy Sunday!

Girls rule . . . boys salivate for bubble tea

Today was "Girls' Day" for the ladies in our neighborhood group! It was a great time of hanging, drinking and eating. After we converged at the home of Heather K., we headed over to Nashville's bubble tea emporium, Fat Straw. If you are unfamiliar with this magical beverage experience, click here for a quick primer a la Wikipedia.

Bubble tea is so tasty, and also pretty! I got a picture of all our teas lined up. A rainbow of deliciousness.


Unfortunately, not all of our grrrrlz were able to join us today, but we are hoping to do it again towards the beginning of June (whatever Saturday Heather H. doesn't have to work), and have everyone along for the fun.

In other news, I purchased my plane tickets yesterday for my upcoming trip to Sunriver! My original thought was to go in June again and repeat my participation in the Pacific Crest weekend of sporting events. But the timing was going to be difficult, I wasn't going to get to stay as long as I wanted, the tickets were going to be expensive, and frankly, my first attempts at running this season have not been terribly encouraging. Like, a fair amount of knee pain. But Southwest had some really good fares on specific dates in May, so I'll be going from the 13th to the 29th. I'm SO EXCITED!

Well, somehow it has once again gotten to be 11 pm, and thus time for me to call it a day. I'm not sure how that hour between 22:00 and 23:00 seems to pass by more quickly than any of the others, except maybe the ones when I'm sleeping. In any case, hope your Saturday was as lovely as mine, and tune in tomorrow to read more of my mundane life.

The blogging cow says, "Mooooooooot"

What a difference a week (and some near-tornadic wind) makes. Regular readers will recall my hammock-related musings from this past Sunday, particularly the potential viability of swinging from this compromised tree in my backyard:


Well, as promised and mentioned here, storms raged in Middle Tennessee last night into this morning. Leaving aforementioned tree looking like this:

Guess that pretty much answers that question.

I am feeling a little worn out after all my running around this week. My time in the studio working with Dave Spencer has been great, but fitting it in around my normal activities has made my schedule somewhat more hectic than usual. I am invited to three different gatherings this evening, but I think I will probably just go to Kate's Senior Thesis Exhibition (she's finally graduating from Watkins! Whoop whoop!) and then come home and be chill. Tomorrow will be another busy day, and the anticipation of that makes this afternoon and evening seem like a good opportunity for some down time. Although now that it has finally stopped raining, I am tempted to go out and dig in the garden some more . . . we'll see. I am still a little concerned about wearing myself down and thus increasing my susceptibility to catching some of the crud that keeps going around.

Happy Friday to all, and to all a good weekend.

Beyond Explanation

I heard the same commercial twice on the radio today, once going to and once coming from my babysitting job in Brentwood. It advertised some upcoming Jon Stewart shows at the Ryman, for which tickets are apparently going on sale soon. As you might expect, the ad includes several pieces of Stewart's comedy "bits" to entice the radio audience into plunking down the cash for tickets.

Unbeknownst to me, apparently JS and I have been doing the same "bit." This is the point at which the story gets kind of hard to explain, 'cause you kind of have to have heard me say this to understand what I mean. But I have, on numerous occasions done a little bit about how the current social situation (dinner party, book club meeting, church service) is actual an elaborate set-up for an intervention for one of the people present. It's not something I say *all* the time or anything (that would just be weird), but I have used it to get a laugh more than once. And I, at least, continue to find it amusing.

Anywho, JS apparently does this same joke in his act! So right now I am torn between feeling A) betrayed that he clearly heard about my hilarity from some of our fellow New Jerseyans and stole my idea, or B) flattered that I had the same thought as such a smart and witty guy as Stewart.

Tonight was the first of the new crop of Thursday-night NBC shows! God bless "The Office." The only problem is that there are currently tornado warnings in some counties east of Nashville, so they kept breaking into the shows with weather updates. BOO. The one TV dude actually suggested that for people in those counties, they should turn their TVs up really loud and go into their tornado hidey holes (he didn't use that exact term). Really, your suggestion is to BLAST the volume on the TV? Isn't that what battery-powered or other emergency radios are for?

Anyway, I hope all those folks east of here are okay, and I hope that wherever you are reading this, you are okay, too. Happy Thursday! I'm going to play some Solitaire and go to bed.

Exit stage right, pursued by trivia

THE GIRLS WERE ROBBED!!!!!

Sorry, I just got home from NFG Kickin' It Game Night @ Russ and Lindsay's and I guess I'm a little bitter. We played Trivial Pursuit. Heather H. even had the cake decorators at her store make a special cake (made of teeny cupcakes) for us! AWESOME.



Heather K.'s favorite flavor is blue. Mmmmmm . . . television.


I will briefly mention that we started out with a quick game of "Imagineiff." Which led to some blushing on my part. If Scott wants to make good on his threat to make the details public in a comment here, he is more than welcome.

But the REAL reason we were there was to Pursue some Trivia! This was the "Pop Culture" edition of the game, which comes with a DVD to be used for the wedge questions. It sounds like a good idea, since it should supposedly assure that these questions have a certain threshold of difficulty. WRONG!

Not to get all Wendy Whiner about it, but the boys' PIE question in the "Movies" category was essentially:

"What former college football star was nominated for an Oscar in 1997?" . . . and then showed this picture (or one very much like it):


Um, WHAT? C'mon, Trivia Interrogators! What the phooey? Sheesh.

Here are the boys thinking very hard about one of their (NON-PIE) questions. This happened a lot.


Here are the Heathers laughing at their expense.

To be fair, it was a close game and it really came down (as it often does) to timing and the luck of the die. I grudgingly congratulate the boys . . . harumph.

Well, it is late and I need to go to bed. Insert witty closing remark here.

Shuttin' my pie hole

As previously mentioned, it was my turn to host book club tonight at la Casa de Lynn. This also meant that I was responsible for providing dinner for the group. Now, before we started reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, I had thought that maybe there would be some cool South American cuisine mentioned in the book that would inspire me as far as menu.

Not so much, as it turns out. In fact, the closest the book really comes to describing what the characters eat is the repeated mention of one who compulsively consumes dirt and whitewash peeled off the walls. I do aspire to throw a memorable party, but not necessarily *that* memorable--plus, there's enough germy garbage going around right now without my contributing to the problem by making my whole book club sick.

I opted instead to take my cue from our other selection, Harold and the Purple Crayon. If you are unfamiliar with it, in one part of the book Harold makes for himself a picnic, comprised of his nine favorite kinds of pie.


In the interest of full disclosure, I confess that I did cheat and use two store-bought "fruit pies" (essentially a high fructose corn syrup calzone) among the nine. However, in my own defense, the pies I was making were significantly more time- and labor-intensive than Harold's.

The two large ones are cheddar-broccoli quiche and chicken pot-pie. Next to those are a mini brown sugar pie, and the two pie-ish items (apple and cherry, L to R). Next to the Cool Whip is chocolate pudding pie (with chocolate chips), lemon pudding, vanilla pudding, and banana pudding pies (all with graham-cracker crusts).


Mmmmmm . . . pie.


We had a good discussion of the first section of Solitude, which we will wrap up two weeks from tonight before moving on to Black Like Me. And most of the pie got eaten, so hooray for that!

The only problem is that not *all* of the pie got eaten. In addition to one piece of quiche and about two pieces of pot pie, there was most of the lemon left and a few bites of the other little pies. I have no compunction about tossing the remainder of those semi-circular jelly-filled monstrosities out, but I really do hate wasting actual food. There was enough of the lemon to merit putting it away, but since the others were mostly gone already, I figured I could just finish them up myself.

In hindsight, this was a significant error in judgment. My belly is now uncomfortably full of pie, and I feel a little sick. Blurgh. I guess I'll just consider myself to be taking one for the team, or the club in this case.

I think it might be a good idea to brush my teeth and get in bed before I lapse into an insulin coma. Happy Tuesday!

Guess how much I paid for milk and bananas?

Nineteen cents. That's right, $0.19! I finally made it over to Produce Place on Murphy Road over in West Nashville today, where I don't get very often since I don't babysit at St. George's anymore on Thursdays. I've had five returnable half-gallon bottles sitting in my garage for about five months, and so took the opportunity while I was in the neighborhood this afternoon to take them back. Once I got my deposit back on the bottles, the total for my new half-gallon of Tennessee milk and five organic bananas was six cents shy of a quarter. I gave the gal two nickels and a dime, and still got a penny in change. WOW.

In other exciting news from today, it was really warm here (weather.com said mid-70s, but it felt like 80 to me); DS and I started working on a new song this morning in the studio; and I got to meet Miss Canaan Jones (she was three weeks old on Saturday)!

I need the aforementioned milk and bananas for book club tomorrow night, which I am hosting--but that's all I'm going to report about the menu for now. The books we have been reading are One Hundred Years of Solitude and Harold and the Purple Crayon. I have about 60 more pages of Solitude to read to get up to the 2/3 point by tomorrow night, so I guess I'll sign off and get to it. Happy Monday!

Hammock . . . hmmmm?

I was picking up the last of the big sticks from the backyard a little while ago, talking with Karen on the phone about how nice it would be to have a hammock back there. The area at the very back is quite shady and seems like it would be an ideal spot. Especially on a day like today, when I would really like to take a nap but feel guilty about being inside when the weather outside is so perfect! However, if I had a hammock, I could nap out in the loveliness guilt-free! (Well, sort of.)

This prompted me to wonder how difficult it might or mightn't be to knit a hammock. I know, I could buy one--but what kind of compulsive DIY-er would I be if I did that? Besides, they are expensive.

Besides the acquisition or construction of the hammock itself, there is of course the question of where it would go. I scanned the backyard for possible spots, assuming that at least one post would need to be sunk into the ground, since I don't have two trees big enough.

Then I looked at the remains of the big tree that split in that big storm last year (see October blog entries for details), and I wondered--would it be feasible to hang a hammock from the part that still remains attached to the main trunk of the tree? It has a gap underneath it about five feet off the ground and seven-ish feet long?

Here is the stack of wood my Dad cut off the tree at Thanksgiving:


And this is what was left when he was finished. It was my intent to have somebody else cut down the rest, but in typical fashion never got around to it. And now I'm thinking . . . fortuitous hammock opportunity?


At its highest point, it is about as high off the ground as I am tall (5'10"-ish):


But the most relevant question seems to be: would it be strong enough? Here's what it looks like at the actual split. Urgh.


Gratuitous pretty tree shot (even more blossoms than last time!)


So, I don't know. I might price canvas or other outdoor fabric sometime when I'm in Joann's or Hobby Lobby, since sewing a hammock is certain to be less time-consuming than knitting one. Although I do already have a one-pound spool of 100% cotton yarn, which I believe is what it would need . . . although light-gauge rope would be even better . . .

Anyway, those are the happenings going on here today. I did a little digging in the garden, as well, until I got too hot and came inside to rest for a while. If you have any thoughts/insights on the hammock situation, I would love to hear them.

Hairbrush therapy

I haven't mentioned for a while the fact that I am working on growing out my hair this year for Locks of Love. Probably because it's not terribly interesting to write about one's hair growing, much less read about someone else's hair growing.

I remember hearing my grandma (among others) talk when I was younger about the practice of brushing one's hair 100 strokes before retiring to bed at the end of the day. Supposedly this was meant to cultivate shine and luster.

Since there are very few active steps I can take in this hair-growing effort, I figured that this discipline was one I could adopt. And you know, I think it actually might be working! The frequent brushing does seem to help my hair be healthier (or at least appear so)--most particularly, the part at the ends that has been dyed multiple times and so is increasingly prone to breakage.

But I've discovered an unanticipated consequence of this ritual, as well--all this hair-brushing is pretty relaxing. I don't know if it's all the repetitive motion, or the scalp stimulation, or a combination of factors--but the reality is that if I'm feeling worn out or frustrated or otherwise "ugh" about life, a nice little session of hair-brushing does make me feel a bit better.

Well, I'm going out to a wine and cheese party in a bit (with homemade cheese that Michael and I made last weekend), so I should probably eat some dinner and get ready. Hope you're having a great weekend and that the weather is nicer where you are than it is here right now (grey and low 50s).

LIFE-CHANGING NEWS!

Reported in yesterday's Tennessean: Trader Joe's Coming to Nashville

It's just so exciting! Among other exciting happenings: the IRS has accepted my tax return and my refund should be direct-deposited in two weeks! AND I updated MissLynn.com with some photos from this morning's session in the studio!

As if all that weren't enough, here are some pictures from last Saturday's Fusion benefit!

Trish and Aaron:


Oh, Lindsay . . . !


Heather and her giant Fusion cocktail (twice as big as anyone else's!):


I thought the best thing in any of the fashion show portions of the evening were these giant hats reminiscent of roses! I am going to make some for Steeplechase.


Brooke Waggoner and her band:

Lindsay took this picture of Heather and me. I'm not sure what we're doing . . . maybe listening to one of the bands? I'm pretty sure we're not listening to the horrible spoken word dude, or our expressions would be quite different.


Yay for friends! Yours truly, Kate, Trish and Heather.


Thanks for the extra pictures, Lindsay! Most of mine came out horrible. I can't figure out to get my camera to take steady pictures in the dark . . . perhaps it is a losing battle.

As if all the awesome things I've already mentioned weren't enough, I think it's has actually stopped raining! Will wonders never cease?

I'm going to try and rest for a couple of hours before heading over to Stefani's "Come as Your 7th Grade Self" party. I may post photos after the fact if they aren't too disturbing. Happy Friday!

Dangit, elusive slumber!

Okay, I admit it. I don't have anything particularly interesting to write for tonight's ACTUAL 100th post, and about an hour ago I was really close to dozing off. So I had decided that I would blow off tonight's post (or POST-pone it, if you will--har har har) in an attempt to catch up on some sleep, and write something more substantial tomorrow. But then I inexplicably woke back up, and so here I am.

The good news about that is, I read an e-mail from my mom which reminded me to file my taxes (I had them 98% finished, but hadn't finished filing them). So I went ahead and did that, meaning I should have my refund in a few weeks. Whoo-hoo! On the down side, I am still awake.

I am going to go clean the cat box and then try to read myself to sleep. It's a glamorous life.

It's hard out here for a hoe

I am apparently bad at counting. Today's post is actually #99 on this blog, not #102 or whatever I thought it would be. My downfall was believing Blogger when they told me how many posts I had . . . the problem is, they also count "Draft" posts, of things I saved in progress and returned to later to publish. Whoops. Okay, so big celebration tomorrow. Or, you know, not.

I spent about 3 hours of this lovely day doing yard work. I started with digging, and got a bit more of my impending garden excavated:


The little sticky-out part is what's newly dug. Unfortunately, as I was working on that section my right knee started to hurt. Since that is the leg that I primarily use to push the shovel through the sod, I decided further exacerbation might be risky and instead moved on to hoeing.

This was a necessary step as the roots in the upturned grass are extremely dense and intertwined. My aim was to try and get as much of the roots as broken up as possible before I put any seeds or seedlings in, but it was back-breaking (hopefully not literally) work.


I made a bit of progress, but not as much as I would have hoped before it wore me out.

However, there were still a couple good hours of daylight (and several unlistened-to NPR podcasts) to be had . . . not to mention, it was too nice a day not to find an excuse to be outside!



So, I spent the next 90 minutes or so picking up sticks and pinecones from around the yard. Not rocket surgery, but necessary if John is going to come and mow over the weekend. I didn't get all the sticks yet (I'm hoping the weather holds out for a bit tomorrow afternoon), but I made a pretty good dent in the pinecones. Anyone have any interesting craft ideas?


Well, I'm off now to pick up Chad for Nerts and NFG. Hope the weather was nice by you today and that you made it outside, too!

Thanks a lot, Al Gore

It's frickin' freezing here in Nashville right now! Okay, not literally--Tennessee has turned me into a weather wuss. According to weather.com, it is 48° and "feels like 44°," but to me, it feels more like 20°. Fahrenheit. For April in Davidson County, 20° Celsius might be considered more seasonable. (That's about 68° F.)

Okay, so maybe I'm a little crabby because I had a long day and am tired. Not that it was a bad day--on the contrary, everything was just delightful. Things started out with Brayden's (2nd) birthday party, and then from there I went on to Hobby Lobby and then my Tuesday babysitting job. Then back home for knitting group (where no actual knitting took place). Nothing was bad, but so much swell stuff can start to make one feel swollen. Also, I think I may have let my blood sugar get a little low after all the day's activity.

I shouldn't really complain, seeing as I have about an hour left on my 4-hour firelog and don't need to be anywhere until 9 a.m. That won't *stop* me from complaining, mind you--I'm just acknowledging that I have no legitimate basis for complaint.

Sources say that the sun'll come out tomorrow! No, the sources were not Annie. Here's hopin' . . . if it's nice enough, maybe I'll get some seeds put in!

Thanks for reading and happy April!